Penny Dreadful

Everyone always says you can't make houses out of humans.

But the walls here are made of bones. Some corpses yell from the dark side of the moon, but the others are obedient souls. They know how to burn off their own skin without screaming. The screamers want to be anything other than alone but they'd rather light themselves aflame than live their life in Hades. Acquaintances cost a penny so I'm friends with everyone here. Not because I like them, but because I have to. Survival is not a word in our dictionary down here. Here in Hades, survival is defined by facades and lying. It's a lonely life, it really is, since there are only 4 people to be acquainted with down here. Well, 3 people and a three headed dog. And the bodies.

There's Charon, the boatman. His sad life consists of rowing the dead across the rivers. I think he prefers the screaming dead over the silent. Sometimes it's too quiet.

Persephone, the poor goddess of flowers who can only be described as wilted. The treasured flower girl is the only light down here, married to her captor. Her captor Hades.

The man who rules death itself and had the prestigious integrity to name the whole of Hell after himself. He tiptoes around the corner when you're walking alone in an alleyway and snatches you in the darkness of the night that he created, stealing you for his own. You're afraid because he is the night and your childhood fear was the dark. Nevertheless, my job is only a little similar. I'm the goddess of hate, ruling the rivers of sorrow, lamentation, forgetfulness, fire, and hate. The whole thing is called the River Styx, named after myself. And I know what you're thinking – 'But Styx! Isn't that hypocritical?' No, no it's not. Mine's a river. His is an entire world.

It's different.

I guess I chose to name it after myself due to my true passion for my job. The lost souls of the people above must drink from my rivers to properly let themselves move from pain to pleasure – life to death. I like to meet and talk with every person needing my help because sometimes I like to feel like the lighthouse instead of the lost ship. The secrets of death crash in gusts of wind across the quicksilver rivers, everyone here except for Hades is burning alive with the pressure of life and death. I could always throw the Fates' plans off their track. Death can never take me, because I can take it. Down here in the dumps being black and blue is the normal and when you're okay, you're broken. The days leave violets growing under the eyes of our flower goddess and bluebells sprout where rosy cheeks should be. With the lighting of the gloaming in Hades comes fragile skin and brittle hair, teeth that chatter when you don't even feel cold.

But I don't mind, because I'm the lighthouse.

What I do mind is how nosy Hades is. It's a man's world, isn't it? He wants my job. He wants to do my hating and oar the souls across my rivers and in Charon's boat. It's my emotion to feel, similar to how my bruises are mine to poke at and his to stay away from.

Disregard the shipwrecks, the wind, the secrets, and the bruises, because this is only what you can expect from Hell. Dark flowers bloom in a garden of gloom because Persephone cries forget-me-nots and life here is harder than she thought.

But my dear, my dear, it's not so dreadful here.